Warnings: Spoilers for anything in Season 11 up to "Double Back", McGee/Delilah, Tony/OC

Disclaimers: I do not own NCIS or its characters. Those belong to the show creators and CBS, sadly. I'm just borrowing them.

A/N: Thank you everyone for you kind words and reviews! It means so much to me :). This chapter introduces the OC. I hope you like her. Happy reading!

"Hey, Tim, NCIS is on the news," Delilah said, breaking Timothy McGee's concentration on his book.

"What happened?" Tim asked, dreading the answer. As far as he knew Parsa was still out there, still targeting NCIS and those that he cared about. He couldn't handle someone else in his life getting hurt or killed right now. "Is it Parsa again?"

Delilah shook her head. She was sitting up in her bed, some color had returned to her cheeks in the last few days and she had been able to hold down solid food. They had spent most of the time in her room talking or watching television together. Now that the doctors had held back on her pain medications she was not sleeping as much and for a few brief seconds things seemed to be getting back to normal. Until she tried to move her legs and couldn't. "Something about a four year old cold case."

Tim looked up at the television screen and watched as the headline flashed—Metro Police receive tip about missing marine, pull remains from the Potomac. NCIS taking over investigation. The reporter was talking about how NCIS was not releasing the young woman's name at this time, until the proper identification and contact of family members had been made, but Tim didn't need to know all that stuff. He already knew. Jennifer Evans. Her name had plagued them for the last four years. It had plagued Tony, who, if he remembered had taking quite the tongue lashing when he had gone to inform the Evans family that the case was cold and that NCIS was shelving the investigation for now.

"Do you know the case?" Delilah asked.

"Y-yeah," Tim stuttered. "We worked…we worked it."

"So…Tony and Gibbs must be working on it?"

"Yeah. Bishop was scheduled to be at the NSA this week debriefing about Parsa."

Delilah bit down on her lip. She could see the conflict in Tim's eyes. He wanted to be at NCIS working the case, but at the same time he wanted to stay with her. She wasn't sure what to say or do at this point. Would it be considered incredibly selfish if she asked him to stay? Her parents had not gone home yet and her mother was promising to stay until she was done rehab and all settled with her wheelchair and accommodations at home. "Tim…you should go."

Tim looked at her, eyes wide. "Director Vance gave me two weeks leave time. If they need me they'll call."

"Please. No they won't. Even I know that."

He knew she had a point. Tony and Gibbs would leave him to tend to his personal matters. That didn't stop the itch he was feeling for getting out of that chair and going down to NCIS to see if he could help. The Evans' case might not have haunted him like it had Tony but he still wanted to help. It was his job and quite frankly he was tired of failing at his job the last week or so. "I'll check in later," he promised. "Right now they probably don't have much. There wasn't much in the original case. Just a missing person's report and grainy video footage of our victim leaving a bar with a man."

She frowned at him, understanding flashing in her eyes. She might not be a federal agent but she knew how it felt when the trail went cold. "There was no case before you even got there."

"Pretty much. It's…it's been bugging us for four years."

"There was nothing much you could do with the little evidence you had."

"Didn't stop her mother from lashing out at us, speaking out against NCIS. Poor Tony took the brunt of it."

She peeked a glance at the television screen again. The news had already moved on to the next story but she was sure once NCIS got a DNA match on the remains and notified the next of kin, they'd be making another appearance. Delilah sighed and fixed her blankets. "Perks of the job," she said sarcastically.

Tim reached out and grabbed a hold of her hand. All he did was give a squeeze, but it was all she needed. It was true she had been down on herself since the bombing. And she had blamed herself for not realizing what Parsa's plan was from the beginning. After going through the same emotions, Tim had told her that none of them had seen it coming until it was too late. Parsa wasn't going to be able to hide out forever, sooner or later some agency was going to catch up to him. "Hungry? I was thinking of going down to the cafertria to get some coffee."

Delilah shook her head. "No, thank you. The nurses are probably going to be bringing in my lunch soon."

"Alright," he said, getting up and stretching his tired, aching muscles. As he did so he wasn't surprised to see Delilah drift off to sleep.

He knew that he now had some time to check in with his team back at NCIS. The painkillers that Delilah had been allotted had finally set in and she'd given into the obvious exhaustion from her physical therapy session that morning. Tim pulled out his cell phone and dialed the number to Tony's desk. It went to voicemail. He tried Tony's cell phone—again straight to voicemail.

Tim frowned. Why was Tony breaking Rule Three? Especially now when he was going to be the only one to give him information on the case? Tim knew that Gibbs wouldn't offer up information for him. He'd tell Tim that they were handling it and that he needed to be with Delilah. So, Tim did the next most logical choice of action—he called Abby.

"I guess you heard that Jennifer Evans was found," Abby answered, sounding melancholy.

"Yeah. I'm trying to get in touch with Tony," Tim replied, stepping out of Delilah's hospital room. H slid the door shut. "He isn't answering. Can you trace his cell?"

"Sure…I guess. He's probably on lunch," Abby replied. Tim could hear her typing on her keyboard. "He's at Café Itlaiano."

Tim thanked her and hung up. Digging out his bus card, the federal agent made his way down to the lobby and to the city bus. Hopefully he could catch Tony at the restaurant before he left. Four years ago Tim had not been very supportive of Tony when he'd been torn apart by Mrs. Evans—this time he wasn't going to make that mistake. Tony had been there for him the last week, cooking for him, coming to the hospital to sit with him—offering to take him back to his apartment to play video games—it was time that he returned the favor.

The small, cozy Italian café that Tony loved to frequent for lunch was quiet that afternoon. And for this he was happy. The chatter of the few diners that were inside had a calming effect and less patrons waiting for a table meant that Tony could spend as much time as he could with the pretty companion at his side. Right now she was carefully picking out the black olives from her salad and was so hyper focused on that he wasn't sure that she noticed they had stopped talking.

Which was all right in his eyes at the moment. It gave him the opportunity to just study her. He had already known that she was beautiful when he'd gotten her number back in November, but since he didn't work up the courage to call her until January, well, he realized that she was prettier than he recalled. It had been her blue eyes that had caught his attention back in the fall. They were the bluest he had ever seen, warm and friendly, and right now, he was enjoying the way they squinted in deep thought while she worked to rid her salad of the offensive little black fruits.

"I wasn't aware that olive removal was such serious work," Tony teased between bites of his own lunch.

"Huh?"

"Leah," Tony chuckled, "You've been working on taking those olives out of your salad for ten minutes and haven't said a word."

Her eyes widened for a moment and she blushed slightly. "Sorry. I tend to hyper focus on the task at hand—in this case, getting rid of olives."

He leaned over and kissed her cheek softly. "Don't apologize. It's cute."

"Cute? Really?"

"Yes, really. No one ever told you that it's cute when your forehead crinkles into deep thought, and you squint your eyes?"

"My mom says it's not very attractive."

Tony reached for her hand and laced his fingers through hers. Slowly he brought her hand to his lips and kissed it. He watched as the small smile spread across her face, easing away the creases that had formed while she had been so focused on her salad just a few seconds before. He'd never thought he'd like small gestures of love like this ever again, especially after Jeanne, but he found that he did like it when she smiled at him, when her cheeks flushed slightly when he kissed her lightly on them. In a short period of time people would say that he had changed, but the truth was he had just revealed himself more. "Well," he finally said, breaking the silence, smiling, "Your mom is wrong—it is attractive."

Leah glanced at him coyly. "Can I ask you a question?"

He nodded his head. "Of course."

"Am I going to get an honest answer, Very Special Agent Anthony DiNozzo?"

"I'll do my best but bare in mind, I make no promises."

She grinned, softly, but then her eyes became serious. "Why did you wait so long to call me?"

He felt his shoulders getting tense. He had a couple options here. He could lie to her, tell her that it was work related—that there just had not been time—which, in reality that wasn't so far from the truth. Of course, lying to her was not the way they should be starting this relationship. Tony took a deep breath and locked his eyes on her. "I wasn't sure if I was ready yet to move on, to start a new relationship when I wasn't sure where the so-called last one stood."

"So called?"

"Long story, another day perhaps."

"Okay. Are you happy you called?"

Tony cracked a small smile, tucked a stray piece of her hair behind her ear and let his fingers stroke the soft locks. "Yeah," he whispered. "I am."

Leah adverted her eyes for a moment, slightly blushing and replied, "I'm glad you called too."

Never had such a simple statement made him feel so good about himself. Ok, well, he could think of a few. When his father finally said after all these years that he was proud of him or when Gibbs had told him that he'd trust him anytime—those had been amazing confidences boasters. Hearing Leah say that she was happy that he'd called her, well, it quieted some of the doubts in his mind that he'd made the wrong decision.

Tony let his fingers idly play with the ends of her ponytail. She smiled at him and went back to picking out the olives in her salad. He was more than content to sit there and watch her. The normalcy of their relationship was comforting and he needed a lot of comforting right now. First Parsa's attack, leaving Delilah wounded and others dead—the fact that the sociopath was still on the run. Now, he had the pleasant task of going to inform the Evans' family that Jennifer was dead and that the man who had killed her had led the police right to her body and was going to die now any day of cancer. Somehow, Tony didn't think the family, especially Mrs. Evans, was going to feel that this was any kind of justice for their daughter.

He tended to agree with them.

With a glance at his watch, he realized that he didn't have a lot of time left and waved the waiter over to give them their check. He fished out his credit card to pay, letting go of Leah's hand for the first time in a while, and sighed. "Duty calls."

"It's okay. I have a whole afternoon of meetings ahead of me."

I'd rather be doing that then working this damn cold case, Tony thought as he signed for the bill. At least in a meeting I might not have to face the demons of my past. Sighing, Tony realized he could no longer drag this lunch out so the two stood up. He helped Leah into her wool jacket and then slipped on his own. They wove their way through the small restaurant, holding hands, and made their way outside. It was bitterly cold and Tony pulled Leah closer to him, using their linked hands to guide him. He rubbed his own hands over her upper arms, trying to draw warmth to them and he felt her arms snake their way around his waist.

She turned her face up towards his and he realized how incredibly close she was to him. Wow. I really, really, really want to kiss her. A knowing smile crossed her face for a moment and she was about to say something when he brought a finger to her lips to silence her. Their eyes locked and he was about to give into that little voice in his head telling him to kiss her when a familiar, surprised voice sputtered, "Tony?"

Tony pulled back and peered into the sun to see a figure standing there. He couldn't make out the face but he knew who it was. "McGee? What are you doing here?"